BATON ROUGE, La. — LSU swimmers Kara Kopcso, Leah Troskot, Colleen O’Neil, Taryn MacKenzie and Danielle Stirrat have qualified for the 2016 NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships March 17-19 at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center.
In addition to the automatic qualifiers, seniors Megan Cox and Caley Oquist as well as freshman Haylee Knight will compete at NCAA’s as relay participants.
“I’m very happy for the group of women we are taking this year,” LSU swimming coach Dave Geyer said. “When you look at our seeding based off previous years, it’s great to watch the development happen during their time here and get deeper into the meet”
Kopcso leads the way for LSU with her third NCAA automatic qualification. The junior owns the eighth-fastest 200 fly, 18th-best 100 fly and 20th-best 200 IM time in the country. At SEC Championships last month, Kopcso set the school record in the 100 and 200 fly. Her time of 1:54.46 was enough for fourth in the conference.
This is Troskot’s second NCAA berth. The junior reached the championship final of the 50 and 100 free at SEC’s. She set the second-fastest 100 free time and third-fastest 50 free time in school history at the conference meet.
Stirrat finished eighth at SEC’s in the 200 free with a time of 1:45.72, which sits second on LSU’s top times list. Her 200 free time is ranked 33rd in the nation.
O’Neil became the second swimmer in the history of the LSU women’s team to go under a minute in the 100 breast. Her time of 59.86 at SEC’s is the 17th-best time in the country.
MacKenzie rounds out the group of individual swimmers invited to the championships. The senior’s time of 1:00.63 is enough for fourth on the top times list. MacKenzie finished 10th in the event at SEC’s.
In addition to the individual swims, LSU also qualified the 200 freestyle relay team of Troskot, Knight, Cox and Stirrat. The relay earned an automatic bid to NCAA’s with its ‘A’ cut at SEC’s.
The eight total swimmers traveling to NCAA’s is one off tying for the record for the most in program history. The Lady Tiger divers will also look to punch their ticket to NCAA Championships March 7-9 in College Station, Texas at Zone Regionals.